


A Cure for Your Scales

by Sachiela



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Fairytail AU, Fluff, M/M, Think Princess and the Frog, all i write is fluff, with a little twist
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-01
Updated: 2018-07-01
Packaged: 2019-05-31 15:07:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,098
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15122042
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sachiela/pseuds/Sachiela
Summary: For coralreefskim for the Voltron Summer Bash Gift Exchange.Keith lives alone in the desert in a shack he built himself, more than happy to be on his own. Of course, that's when he stumbles across a talking lizard.





	A Cure for Your Scales

**Author's Note:**

> coralreefskim, I ended up doing more of a fairytail AU rather than a fantasy AU. I hope you enjoy it.

Keith had thought that building a shack in the middle of the desert was the perfect solution to getting away from everyone. He had everything he needed with him to survive on his own and managed to build next to an oasis with a deep well of water, so he wouldn’t go thirsty or anything. And he’d built a little greenhouse on the side of his shack to grow any food he needed, which he supplemented with random animals he caught while exploring.

So, really, he should have been able to avoid contact with anyone for at _least_ a few months, if not longer. He was already considered reclusive when he lived in the nearby town and no one seemed to think anything of it when he sold his now-deceased father’s property and wandered off.

Luck, however, never seemed to be on his side.

He was climbing over one of the nearby rock formations when he saw a small lizard sunning itself on top. It hadn’t noticed him yet and it had been a couple days since he’d caught anything. It was worth a shot. And this one looked healthy, too. A bonus compared to the last few critters he’d found.

He fashioned a snare with rope from his belt and managed to slip it around the lizard’s neck and one leg before it noticed and began to freak out. Keith made sure to pull the rope tight so it couldn’t get away, but then nearly dropped his end in surprise when the thing opened its mouth.

“Oh _Dios_ , cheese and crackers, please don’t eat me. I didn’t even realize there were any people out here! I thought the curse dropped me some place where there’s not supposed to be any people. Unless I’m already dead? Oh, no, don’t tell me that I’m stuck like this even in the afterlife?”

“What the fuck?” Keith muttered, tempted to just cut the rope and run. Had he been out in the sun too long already? Or had someone come by and put hallucinogens in his water? Lizards shouldn’t be talking!

The lizard looked up at him and gaped. Well, it looked like it was gaping anyway. “I guess if I’m already dead, though, that’s chill. You’re really cute.”

Keith did drop the rope at that point, but the lizard didn’t try to run or anything. How was this even real? “How are you even talking?”

“Oh! You can hear me! I wasn’t sure if you could. I kinda got dropped out here as soon as the curse was cast and wasn’t sure what it all entails. This is great!”

He couldn’t handle this. Standing, Keith brushed off his pants of any sand and turned to climb back down the rock. If he went back to bed and slept, he would find out this was all some crazy dream.

The lizard, however, had other ideas. “Wait, no! Don’t leave! I’ve been out here for almost a week! I can’t stay like this!” It (he? The voice sounded masculine) scrambled to catch up with him but got tangled up more in the rope for its troubles. “Ow, shoot, this is so not cool.”

Keith paused and glanced back. He really couldn’t justify leaving a critter out helpless like that, hallucination or not. He knelt and untied to rope, touching the lizard as little as possible, just in case it decided to try and bite him or something. But it didn’t even do that. He’d _never_ seen a wild animal that docile. Maybe it wasn’t a dream?

“Thanks, um...I don’t know your name.”

At that point, Keith had resigned himself to playing out this crazy day. Who knew, maybe he’d wake back up in his shack later and find out this was all just some crazy realistic dream. “Keith.”

“Keith, all right. Thanks, Keith.” The lizard took a few odd steps forward, like it wasn’t quite sure how to move itself with four legs, and placed its front legs on Keith’s knee. It _grinned_ at him. “I’m Lance and I would really like if you could take me with you. I wasn’t kidding when I said I haven’t seen anyone in nearly a week.”

Despite a voice in his head telling him to get the fuck away, Keith frowned down at the lizard-- _Lance_. “What exactly happened to you? How did you get cursed?”

Lance somehow managed to look sheepish, which wasn’t something Keith thought a lizard could do. But, well, he hadn’t thought they could talk either, and look where that got him.

“I...might have flirted with the wrong person and her dad got angry with me and cursed me?” he said meekly.

Keith scoffed. “You must have really pissed him off. I don’t know if I should help someone who’s done that.”

The lizard’s head tilted down and it lowered itself from Keith’s leg. “Yeah, maybe. I just thought she was the one, you know? Maybe I just tried too hard or something. She didn’t even try to defend me when her dad started doing this. But, well, she’s beautiful and has her pick of anyone she wants. Why would she settle for someone like me?”

Huffing out a breath, Keith apologized to the rational voice in his head that sounded very much like the one person in town that was nice to him, a young man named Shiro, but he knew he was going to take the lizard back with him. He moved his hands to cup under the animal and scooped it up, bringing it up with him as he stood.

The lizard screamed.

“Whoa! _Dios_! What are you doing?!” Lance asked, small claws digging into Keith’s gloves.

“I was going to put you on my shoulder so you could come back with me. Unless you’d rather try to keep up with me?” Keith replied with a small smirk.

If possible, Lance’s claws dug into the fabric even more. “No, nope. Riding on your shoulder sounds great. Thanks, buddy.”

It took a little work, but Keith finally got Lance unhooked from his gloves and attached to the shoulder of his jacket instead, a mesh material made to protect his skin while still being able to breathe so it was easy enough for the lizard to hold on to.

The hike back to his place was otherwise uneventful, if not full of chatter from Lance most of the way. But it was fine. Even though he had moved out to be away from people, he found that Lance’s voice didn’t grate on his nerves like the people he grew up around. What did that say about him, that he enjoyed the company of talking cursed lizards better than normal humans?

“Oh, wow, this is cool. You said you built it yourself, right?” Lance asked as the shack came into sight.

Keith hummed, a bit surprised that Lance was complimenting the place instead of commenting on how small it looked. “Yeah. I did a lot of shop classes in school, so I knew the basics and figured out the rest as I went along.”

“You mean to tell me you took a couple high school classes and managed to use that to build your own house?”

“Yes…?”

Lance scoffed that time and flopped flat on Keith’s shoulder. “Totally jealous, but that is super cool.”

He wouldn’t blush at something like that from a _lizard_ , but he could feel the hint of it in his cheeks. “It’s not that hard. I don’t have anything like indoor plumbing set up, so it’s a lot simpler than it looks.”

“Still more impressive than anything I could have done.” Lance paused and considered his situation. “And way more than I can hope to ever do now.”

Keith wasn’t sure how to respond to that, so he took Lance inside with him and placed him down on the simple table he’d built months before building the house, for lack of a better spot to put him. “So, do you have any ideas on how to break this curse? You must have given it some thought by now?” He sat on the chair next to the table and rested his arms on it. If Lance’d been alone out there for a week, he must have had at least a couple ideas, right?

The lizard shrugged as best it could with its shoulders and Keith was again struck by how odd human gestures looked on the creature. “I don’t know a whole lot about magic, even though I’ve been around it for awhile. No more than the average person, I’d guess. But, well, everyone hears about true love’s kiss being able to break any curse, right? Probably my best shot at this point. Not like I’ll be able to find a princess all the way out here.”

Blushing softly for reasons he couldn’t comprehend, Keith coughed lightly into his hand. “Doubt it. I haven’t heard of anyone even remotely considered royalty out here.”

“Why are you blushing?” Lanced asked, tilting his head curiously and taking a few small steps closer. “Do you actually want to kiss me?”

Keith shook his head quickly even as he turned redder. “No. Even if I did believe in that true love stuff, what are the chances of your true love being me at all?”

“A lot better than the chances of anyone actually finding me out there in the desert,” Lance replied easily, as if he was ready for that response.

Keith wasn’t sure what to say to that. On the one hand, Lance was right in that. It was rare anyone just wandered out into the desert—at least rare for anyone to go out and actually come back. But on the other, he knew his own luck with life. There was no way that he was the person that Lance was destined for.

While lost in his internal debate, Lance moved even closer until he had his claws resting on Keith’s gloved hand. “C’mon. Might as well find out and get it over with right? If nothing happens, no hard feelings. Just means either you aren’t my true love or that’s not the way to break the curse.”

Shrugging, Keith pulled his hand away. Maybe part of him did think there was something to true love, but just didn’t want to end up being disappointed again by not getting what he wanted. Not that he wanted Lance, per se. But...the idea of someone being destined for him sounded nice. With everyone he cared about leaving him in some way, the idea was almost comforting.

But why would he get anything like that? Best to avoid it to never be hurt.

Lance, unaware of Keith’s inner dialogue, kept pressing. “One quick kiss. It won’t hurt anything to try.”

It could hurt a lot, though, and Keith knew it. Even if he hadn’t known Lance for very long, he was the first person...lizard... _being_ that had been able to talk to him for any length of time without ridiculing him or asking why he lived alone or anything.

“Please?”

“Fine, okay,” Keith muttered. Best to rip it off like a bandaid, maybe. The less time he spent getting attached to someone else who might likely leave, the quicker he could move on. He leaned in close to Lance and squeezed his eyes shut, half expecting to hear Lance immediately backtrack and play it all off as a joke. When nothing came, he closed the last bit of space between them and pressed his lips on...well, a lizard’s mouth. God, this must have been the strangest thing he’d ever done.

A bright light flashed through the room, causing spots behind Keith’s eyelids. Blinking a few times, he opened them to see a tall hispanic boy sitting on his table. His first thought was that he was glad he’d managed to build a sturdy enough table to handle the sudden weight of a person.

“Oh, _Dios_! Keith, it worked!” Lance patted his hands over his face and down over his torso, as if making sure everything was where it should be. “Oh, thank goodness, the curse kept my clothes for me. That would have been so awkward.”

Lance looked up at Keith finally and he was startled to see just how blue his eyes were. Fuck, Lance had no right to call him cute when the man himself was fucking _gorgeous_.

And then the implication of what Lance returning to normal meant hit him and he dropped his head down on his crossed arms and groaned.

He was _screwed._


End file.
